


Pennyroyal

by orphan_account



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Dark, Forced Abortion, Miscarriage, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 13:18:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4021279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With moon tea, with Tansy and mint and wormwood,a spoon of honey and a drop of pennyroyal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pennyroyal

**Author's Note:**

> My take on Lysa's forced abortion.

_i. Moon tea._

Of course good girls don't need moon tea. Lysa's a good girl, a good girl like Hoster Tully's daughter should be. She's demure and polite and most of the time, she's obedient and kind.

_Only now that she's in love, Lysa can take risks, because Petyr's mouth tastes like mint and lust and blood, even when he is weak with lost blood. Cat and Edmure don't quite understand him, but Lysa does, oh she does. She knows what it's like to be the second, the second best and the second choice in everything. It's not entirely fair that Cat is betrothed to the dashing Lord Brandon, and Lysa doesn't even have a suitor. But who cares for suitors?_

_Lysa has Petyr and that's all that matters._

Good girls don't need moon tea. So she doesn't ask the maester for any. Petyr is kind and noble and clever, and he'll come back for her, if she needs him. she likes the thought of his seed in her womb, planting into the walls inside her, growing like a tiny bud, pulsing and weaving into a tiny creature that will be the best of both his parents. she's old enough to carry a babe to term and she wants this babe.

Lysa Tully doesn't think of moon tea again.

 

_ii. Tansy._

There's a herb woman here in Riverrun, she had a baby girl called Tansy. 

Tansy died last week. 

She was a sweet girl, but even sweet girls drown when they fall into the river. The herb woman wept and wept and wept when they fished the little body out of the river. Lysa wept and wept and wept with her. She knows what it's like to love a sweet babe. The dizziness of her head and the deep seated sickness that pervades her lungs each morning is a sign of what is to come. Petyr's son has taken root in her belly, and Lysa's nearly delirious with joy. 

If only she could tell Petyr! He would have been so ecstatic. He would have smiled, with those glimmering little eyes glowing like diamonds and placed those dear hands on the invisible mound of her belly. He would tell her that he loved her, like he did that long past night, when he slid inside her and took her maidenhead for himself. He would love her and come to wed her, and even if he didn't she'd still love him, only for the reason that he loved  _her._ Small insipid Lysa, whom nobody could come to notice. 

But father had cut her off from poor Petyr, who had been banished to the fingers, where he had been born. There was no way she could tell him that her womb was quickening. No way to bring him close to the child he did not know he had fathered. 

She watches the herb woman cradle the little girl, now heavy and bloated from the river water and weeps.

 

_iii. Mint._

Petyr's breath is fresh like the mint he chews. Cat finds it too cold, Lysa loves the flavour of it. 

The morning sickness is no longer unbearable, and her baby feels a solid weight inside her belly. \

Lysa glows. Like an angel, says Uncle Brynden as he kisses her cheek. "I wonder what's been at you." he laughs, fond in a way Father never was. 

 _It's Petyr,_ Lysa wants to say. Brynden Tully alone sympathised with Petyr as she did. 

_"To love is to hurt, Lysa." He said, as Lysa sobbed on his shoulder, thinking of poor Petyr being carried away from the battle, bleeding and pale, as Brandon Stark, that beast of a man, stood vindicated, with his arm around a shaking Cat. "That poor boy."_

Petyr's baby. 

Lysa wonders what he will look like. No doubt, the child will be a boy. Lysa knows that. Mothers have a way of knowing things like that. She wants him to be clever and handsome like Petyr, with shining eyes, and a sharp wit. She wants him to be the most beautiful boy in the world. 

She wants hom to live and love and grow, knowing that he is  _hers, her sweet baby._

She wishes he would meet Petyr someday and call him "father."

 

_iv. Wormwood._

Lysa never thinks that a simple fainting spell would bring all down on her head.

Lord Hoster is beyond furious.

"You let him bed you!" He roars, spittle flying from his lips. The only time he's ever been this angry is when Brynden refused Bethany Redwyne. No, he's even angrier now. And Lysa cannot stand it any longer.

"I went to him willingly." she says. "I wanted him. And I want this baby."

Hoster pales. "You want this... this  _bastard?"_ he snarls, stalking down the hall to where she is standing. Once Lysa would have cowered, but not now. 

Lysa is no longer a shy maid. She is a woman bedded, and she is a  _mother._

She looks her father in the eye and answers, "Yes."

Perhaps she should no have been so bold. There is only so much defiance a father can take, and certainly, Lord Hoster is not renowned for his patience, even though he loves his sweet girls more than anything else in the world.

She anticipates the blow that falls on her cheek, and the blood that seeps into her mouth, bitter and coppery. 

Outside the castle, the herb woman walks down by the river that claimed her child. She drops her herb basket, and one of the young boys runs to her, to help her with it. The basket is full of foxglove and Tansy and Rue and Wormwood.

 

_v. A spoon of honey._

Looking back, Lysa should have  _known_ what was going to happen. Her father's stoic silence had been uncanny, but Lysa had chosen to ignore him. And now she pays the price.

The brew had been to help the babe, he had said. A tea that had tasted odd, laced with honey as it was. There was something veiled about the flavour of it. And yet, Lysa had never thought he would have given her anything that could harm her sweet babe.

Only he did.

She was alone in her chambers. She'd sent off the maids, wanting a moment to herself and the babe. Suddenly, her babe quickened.

Lysa felt the deepest sense of joy in that moment. Her babe, for the first time, kicking, beating his tiny feet on the inside of her belly. Oh, and Lysa laughed in mirth. Her boy would be a fighter, a strong, clever fighter. Just like his father. Brave and good and clever. 

But her little boy's kicking soon grew short and spastic and aborted, and the faint drumming in her belly transformed into a deathly pain in her belly. Lysa doubled over, clutching her abdomen, a broken whimper spilling from her red lips. 

She looked down to find that there was blood on the front of her dress.

_No._

The blood was seeping onto her skirt, red and fresh and  _terrifying_ as it slid between her legs.

_No. Not my baby._

The blood was bright and the pain too intense, and Lysa never realized that she was screaming. Father... the Maester... the couldn't-  _they wouldn't..._ No, No-

_No No nononononono.........._

They found her on the floor, a broken sobbing mess, her skirt rucked up, and her hands between hr legs, trying in vain to push the blood and the babe back into her womb. 

 

_vi. Pennyroyal_

Jon Arryn. She had been wedded to Jon Arryn.

Granted, the man was old enough to be her grandfather. But Lord Hoster thought it a match and Lysa had no strength left to fight him. She was only a tool, used goods, broken and unwanted, her mind claimed. No one would want her now, not even Petyr. How could he want her? She had killed his baby.

And now, here she was, in the sept of Riverrun. To be wed. Cat squeezes her hand gently, she herself a nervous bride to the brother of the man she was promised to. 

Lysa cannot find the strength to squeeze back. 

 


End file.
